Circuit court judges appointed by Presidents Reagan and G.W. Bush ruled recently that a 2005 decision by the Bush NLRB was unreasonable.

The Bush Board found that the CEO of Stanadyne Automotive Corp. acted legally when he prohibited “harassment” in response to what he described as “union supporters harassing…fellow employees” during the organizing campaign.  Yet the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit disagreed, and ruled that since the employer had already announced one illegal rule prohibiting workers from discussing unions with their coworkers, “no reasonable employee could fail to infer that the rule against 'harassment’…was intended to discourage protected election activity.”

This decision is a step in the right direction to tip the NLRB back to neutral ground, after it handed out a unionbusting playbook for employers in 2005. But unfortunately, the circuit court left the Board’s other decisions in the case standing, including that Stanadyne did nothing wrong when he spread intimidating statements and propaganda around the workplace during the campaign, including a giant poster with the word “CLOSED” written across images of shuttered plants. 

The court noted that the Labor Board made this ruling on the basis that the “prediction” of plant closure was based on “objective fact.”  Right—like the fact that 51 percent of employers faced with organizing efforts threaten to close the facility if workers vote for a union, yet fewer than three percent of these employers follow through with the threat.  Clearly, we have a long way to go.